STUDY published last week found that the brains of autistic children show abnormalities that are likely to have arisen before birth, which is consistent with a large body of previous evidence. Yet most media coverage focuses on vaccines, which do not cause autism and are given after birth. How can we help people separate real risks from false rumors?

Over the last few years, we've seen an explosion of studies linking autism to a wide variety of genetic and environmental factors. Putting these studies in perspective is an enormous challenge. In a database search of more than 34,000 scientific publications mentioning autism since its first description in 1943, over half have come since 2008.

As a statistically minded neuroscientist, I suggest a different approach that relies on a concept we are familiar with: relative odds. As a single common measuring stick to compare odds, I have chosen the "risk ratio," a measure that allows the bigger picture to come into focus.

Sam Wang is an associate professor of molecular biology and neuroscience at Princeton, so he must known what he's talking about. (Or so we're supposed to believe.)

Wang is among the well-credentialed experts from big name universities covered in stories denying a link between vaccines and autism. They're intended to impress us. THEY MUST BE RIGHT.

IT'S NOT VACCINES. MOST media coverage has been about vaccines. And that's nothing but "false rumors." (ALMOST ALL media coverage DENIES ANY LINK, so what is Wang talking about?)

So what are we to think about "the risk of autism"? He tells us NOT TO WORRY. There may not be more autism. It's probably something that happens in the womb (which of course, dumps the blame on MOM, just like back in the days of the "refrigerator mom")

Offit’s comments came today in his keynote address at Health Journalism 2014, this year’s annual meeting of the Association for Health Care Journalists.

In his discussion of some continued–and faulty–reporting on an association between childhood vaccines and the incidence of autism, Offit said, “It’s easy to scare people. It’s harder to un-scare them.” His view is that vaccination rates will only increase because of outbreaks of otherwise preventable diseases such as measles and pertussis (whooping cough).

Who’s an “expert?”

Offit posed the question to journalists of what criteria establishes someone as an expert worthy of serving as a valid source or commenter on issues of health. On one hand, reporters and producers should held accountable for soliciting celebrities lacking qualifications in science and medicine whose unqualified opinions will be broadcast to millions or read by hundreds of thousands.

Offit is clearly threatening members of the media if they dare to do anything approaching BALANCE when reporting on vaccines and autism. Forbes should be outraged at Offit's proposal. Forbes is not. I posted comments.

More than 16,000 California children entered kindergarten this school year without vaccinations because of their parents' personal beliefs, up 15 percent from the prior year and more than double the number from six years ago, according to new figures from the California Department of Public Health.

The numbers were released as California battles an outbreak of measles - a disease mostly eradicated in California following decades of mass vaccination - involving almost 50 people. Medical experts say waning vaccination rates are one cause of the outbreak.

"It's very concerning to me and to those who work in vaccines," said Dr. Mark Sawyer, a specialist in pediatric diseases at the University of California, San Diego. "The rates have been steadily going up."

Many of those personally opposed to vaccinations contend they do more harm than good. The Canary Party, a prominent group that advocates letting parents choose whether to vaccinate their children, states on its website that "dozens of published research papers show that YES, vaccines and autism are linked."

This is exactly the kind of reporting that Offit wants stopped in his call for censorship. No one is supposed to know there is a Canary Party and that there are 'dozens of published research papers."

Many health experts are still asking questions on the heels of the latest CDC report involving autism. That study shows one in 68 children now has an autism spectrum disorder. That's a 30 percent increase from just two years ago. And just as this new report outlined, autism experts in Austin say it's hard to pinpoint if there's truly been an increase or if the numbers simply reflect better diagnosis. . . .

"Given the new diagnostic criteria that came out in a recent report and just the greater clarity in what autism is as a spectrum disorder, it doesn't surprise me that more people are getting diagnosed so services can get started early," said Suzanne Potts, the interim director of the Autism Society of Austin. . . .

"Over 50 percent of the kids who are diagnosed with autism are nonverbal," said Potts. "The other 49 percent are very verbal or have lots of great skills and strengths, but they may have been passed off as a quirky kid a long time ago. Now, we see them with their social deficits and the challenges they have just interacting with their peers."

While all autism experts agree early detection is the key -- autism can even be diagnosed in children as young as two years old -- the recent CDC report found most children are still being diagnosed late, past the age of four. They say that's even more important because the Autism Society of Austin reports there are now 30,000 families in Central Texas with an autistic child.

DEBATE? THERE WAS NO DEBATE. It's all just better diagnosing, change in definition. I posted comments.

Oh, there are lots of theories -- but hardly any general agreement, not even on the central question of whether the incidence of autism, Asperger's syndrome or other spectrum disorders is really on the rise. Maybe just the reporting is. And then there's the even thornier question of what lies behind the neural development disorder.

Something environmental? Something prenatal? Concerns about childhood inoculations may finally be fading as scare data from one British researcher seems lately to have been debunked.

But whatever the cause, too many parents are facing life-altering crises when their 2-, 3- and 4-year-olds don't start speaking. And the power of early detection, though crucially important, often isn't enough.

I'm so sick of news report making light of autism. NO ONE IN THE MEDIA GIVES A DAMN HOW MANY CHILDREN ARE SUFFERING.

Ellis Henican doesn't have a clue what's going on. It's simply outrageous for him to speculate that Mozart and Eisenstein were autistic therefore, it's nothing new. I ended up posting 14 comments.

"There may be some truth to the idea that there is an increase in people moving to the state because we have an array of services for children and adults on the autism spectrum," Jessica Goldsmith-Barzilay, Assistant Director of Autism Family Services of NJ told PIX11 News.

"Likely more prominent is NJ's first-rate system for identifying and diagnosing autism, but the increase cannot be tied to better detection alone. There is an actual increase.

According to Goldsmith-Barzilay, there may be other factors leading to the high incidence in New Jersey that experts just aren't aware of.

Increased awareness in identifying and diagnosing children is another contributing factor.

The question is never really answered. The numbers may be "startling" and "staggering," but no one is really interested in why. In 2013, one study put the autism rate at one in 50. In 2012, when the one in 88 rate was announced, no one was alarmed. Autism wasn't a crisis to anyone in charge of health care and it isn't today.

New Jersey's previous rate was one in 49. Now it's gone up to one in 45.

Bergen County will recognize Autism Awareness Month by lighting up county administrative offices in blue and host an information session for families in May, the county executive's office announced Friday.

"Autism in whatever form it takes can be a very a devastating disorder for its victims and their families," County Executive Kathleen Donovan said in a press release. "The families struggling day to day need to know that there is support for them and there is compassion in the community."

In addition to displaying blue lights at One Bergen Plaza in Hackensack, Donovan asked residents to also "light it up blue" for Autism Awareness Day April 2 and keep the lights on all month.

Donovan said the county would host an event May 4 from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at the Bergen County Zoo in Van Saun Park in Paramus to educate locals on services offered for families with autistic children. The event will also include free train rides and animal demonstrations.

Autism is "a devastating disorder" for victims and families. Thousands of lives are being touched by autism. Really?

Something that affects one in 45 kids in New Jersey and is devastating for the people involved deserves more than blue lights and calls for awareness. Why doesn't anyone see that? I posted 5 comments.

Joe Mitchell, MA, BCBA, who lives in Oak Park, is program director of Applied Behavior Interventions.

Ms. Cavallari, as a licensed therapist and owner of an autism therapy practice, it was with great distress and frustration to read of your decision not to vaccinate your children.

While you and your husband are certainly entitled to your opinions, your celebrity status does not give you license to misinform the public on the mythical link between autism and vaccinations.

That said, I feel both a professional and ethical responsibility to offer a truthful explanation on the matter, if only to assuage the anxieties of those parents, who, because of your irresponsible comments, might now feel that vaccinating their kids might put them at greater risk for developing autism. . . .

In short, the mythology you peddle as truth began in 1998 when a controversial study by Dr. Andrew Wakefield was published in the British medical journal The Lancet purporting a link between autism and MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccinations.

Behavioral therapist slams Jay Cutler and his wife over their vaccine position. He says there is no link. He blames Wakefield. He believes the studies and officials.

He says kids are born with autism and it's genetic.

He should know, he runs a autism treatment clinic. Incredibly, he makes his living off of the autism epidemic and has no concern over where all his clients are coming from.

I posted comments and they were each immediately removed by the SUN-TIMES as soon as they appeared.

VIDEO Jim Axelrod: "One out of every 68 children in the United States is now believed to be somewhere on the autism spectrum. That's up from one out of 88, just two years ago."

Next viewers are shown twin boys with autism playing a game.

"According to the CDC estimates, the increased rate of autism suggests every grade in every elementary school nationwide now has at least one child with autism. Experts say it's not just because there are more autistic children, there's more awareness and better diagnosis.

"But Michael Rosanoff, associate director of research for Autism Speaks says there may be more autistic children who have not yet been identified."

Rosanoff: "This number doesn't surprise us, but we feel it's still an underestimate of the true public health challenge."

Isn't autism an interesting phenomenon? One out of 68? It's just "more awareness and better diagnosis." Incredible how we just used to miss all theses kids in the past.

Michael Rosanoff at Autism Speaks is expecting to find more autistic kids out there. He thinks we're still underestimating the rate.

Rosanoff isn't too concerned. He refers to autism as a "public health challenge."

CBS shows us the pleasant side of autism. These boys are cute, friendly, and interactive. It's so easy to pass autism off as something that's always been around. Imagine a video of a nonverbal autistic teenager wearing a helmet, rocking and screaming. It would never happen at CBS. It would raise too many questions.

No, instead CBS and Jim Axelrod pretend that these boys are the faces of autism. According to their mother, they're going to have jobs and do well as adults.

I have a suggestion for CBS and Autism Speaks. Next time, do a real story on autism. Go to a number of nursing homes and find the one in 68 residents with autism. Don't we owe it to them to identify those with autism?

(VIDEO) Snyderman: "There's sort of a mixed review from experts across the country. The numbers themselves are startling and speak, I think, to the fact that we've not only moved the goalposts wider when we redefine autism spectrum disorder, and not just autism."

"We're looking more closely in diagnosing kids that perhaps before fell through the cracks." . . .

". . . And I know what I'm going to say now is going to irritate a lot of people, but it does increasingly mean that it is not vaccines that cause problems when children get their baby shots. It goes to an insult earlier in fetal development. And we all have to start really getting on the same page looking for the cause. We don't know it yet, but we're getting closer."

So in the world of Nancy Snyderman, there's no such thing as regressive autism, there never was a Hannah Poling or dozens of vaccine injury cases involving autism that were compensated by the federal government. This "expert" knows NOTHING FOR SURE ABOUT AUTISM--except that vaccines don't cause it.

Yesterday, the CDC released its newest data on the number of children affected by autism in the country. The health and education records of 8-year-old children in 11 states - Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Georgia, Maryland, Missouri, New Jersey, North Carolina, Utah, and Wisconsin - were combed to arrive at the new numbers. The finding that many have expressed concern about is that now 1 in 68 children may have autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The number is up markedly from two years ago when it was 1 in 88, and seven years ago when it was 1 in 150. But the thing to keep in mind is that these are simply rates at which kids are being identified - so the data may not indicate that autism prevalence has actually jumped that much. . . .

On the bright side, this last point indicates that more kids are actually being diagnosed with ASD than in earlier reports, when this number was only 70%.

Colleen Doyle, the director of the National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities at the CDC, says that increasing awareness on the community level is what's key. "Communities across the country can use this information to promote early identification and to plan for training and service needs." She adds that early identification is "the most powerful tool we have right now to make a difference in the lives of young children with autism."

Shannon Coconis is a mother of three children and also the president of the National Autism Association of Southeast Ohio. She says one of her children was diagnosed with autism and that some members of the autism community believe that vaccinations are just one of the triggers that may cause the disease.

"We feel very strongly that vaccines are one of the triggers that can throw many kids who are genetically predisposed or for some other reason would have a chance to get autism so we are very careful about what we put into our bodies," said Coconis.

Coconis says that parents should read the labels of the vaccines and understand the purpose and potential dangers of each ingredient. She encourages parents to weigh out the benefits and risks of receiving vaccinations.

Thumbs up to WHIZ for allowing an autism mom to express concern about vaccination.

Autism Awareness Month is celebrated throughout April, and this year will be kicked off by World Autism Awareness Day on April 2.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that overall autism rates in the U.S. have increased, and that one in 68 American children are on the autism spectrum.

Brett Spitale, executive director of Greater Pa. Autism Speaks, joined KDKA Radio's Bill Rehkopf on the Afternoon News to talk about the CDC's new numbers.

"One thing we know is that the numbers that are out there are most certainly going to continue to rise as well, too. There are still individuals out there in the U.S. who have autism and are not yet identified," said Spitale. "We know the CDC's approach relies on and educational and medical service records that are certainly improving diagnosis, but you know, we are still missing these individuals who are not diagnosed so we will certainly see that number rise."

While they feel the increase in numbers may also be due to the greater awareness and diagnoses of autism, Autism Speaks is still pushing to get the message of autism out there. They hope to one day find a better understanding of what causes Autism and the best ways to treat those who suffer from it.

In a world where the only thing we can do about autism is to screw in blue light bulbs and flip a switch, Autism Speaks expects the numbers to get worse--because of "greater awareness." There is a real surreal feeling reading this, kind of like we're all walking off a cliff together and no one cares. I posted comments.

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Today from MSN: Companies Find Autism Can Be a Job Skill

"Some employers increasingly are viewing autism as an asset in the workplace. For example, Software company SAP believes autism may make some individuals better at certain jobs than those without autism. Shirley Wang and SAP Managing Director Liam Ryan discuss."

No worries, Linda. I would like to see an end to sacrificing animals for our research needs as well, especially when the research is repetitious, but since it is not even close to ending, I wouldn't want to put autism research at a disadvantage. But I am shocked by the number of different mouse models carried by Jackson Labs. If an experiment done using tissue culture can be repeated in mice, it's not considered complete until the mouse work is done, so there's always a call for more models to suit every possible variable. The rules have gotten stricter for using animals, to reduce misuse, but there's still plenty of wasteful animal work.

Yes, why would it be the result of SBS yet be the cause of autism prenatally- never mind that parents have been wrongly accused of "SBS" and the child was later proven to have a brain problem that caused their death- nothing to do with abuse (I remember one case where there were twins and the one died, father accused, then the other twin who was only in custody of the other parent died too- of a proven physical problem that was in no way related to abuse).
Some researchers are finding a lot of neurological problems relate to blood flow in the brain.

Betty,
I hope you didn't think I was attacking you. It just makes me angry the way that humans use and abuse animals. Just because an animal is smaller than we are or has a shorter lifespan, it doesn't mean that they have less of a right to live their life. If that were true, then 30 foot whales would have the right to use and sacrifice humans for their needs. The thing with mice studies is that the reason why they're needed is man's arrogance and greed in that man won't unless forced with "scientific proof" cease poisoning others and the planet. If not for man's arrogance and greed, many of these studies wouldn't even be necessary. Even after a result proves a hypothesis, there is argument, a call for repeating the studies, a call for bigger studies, there is a tremendous amount of duplication and little sharing from center to center, there is competition instead of collaboration. Instead of doing everything possible to spare the lives of these and other innocent animals,they are treated as dispensable inanimate objects. When I read what you wrote about genetically modified mice, the thought occurred to me too, that they are in the process of genetically modifying humans too.

I think the bottom line is that we have no right to, for instance, kill thousands of monkeys to harvest their kidneys to make a vaccine. It may be that SV-40 is one way of knowing that man has overstepped his bounds. Instead of protecting other earthlings as we're supposed to do, we've tortured, murdered and exploited them. The commandment is Thou Shalt Not Kill, not Thou Shalt Not Kill Thine Own Kind.

All that said, I do understand where you're coming from as far as wanting to see an end to the autism epidemic.

Here is the link to the BBC 'Bang goes the theory' programme on dementia. The researchers recreated brain neurons from human stem cells (live donor) in a petri dish and demonstrated how protein clusters disrupt the neuron connections. NO MICE EXPERIMENTATION needed here. The link is available for 5 weeks.

From the programme write up:-

"The good news that we are living longer brings with it the bad news that many of us will suffer the ill effects of old age as a result.

Maggie Philbin looks at how our muscles and bones change as we get older. Liz Bonnin explains how bones are made and how they weaken with age, then looks at a human brain growing in a petri dish, that could pave the way for a cure to diseases like Alzheimer's.

(I've recently been very fed up with the BBC science programmes, and complained formally about overt bias after the Newsnight programme featuring Offit and a smirking Godlee 'playacting' over whether vaccines should be mandatory in the UK. The Daily Mail has been publishing articles about BBC bias on global warming, vaccines and GM foods amongst others. The universal licence fee comes up for renewal in 2 years and the model for BBC finance will almost certainly HAVE to change to a subscription based model.)

Hera,
Or during birth - pitocin and other interventions. Is anyone looking at the anesthetics given to women in labor? Have they changed? Are the doses and combinations standardized? Does any woman know the names and dosages of the drugs that were put into her epidural? Could this account for some of the "from birth" cases?

@Hera,
That's an amazing find! I've been hoping someone with knowledge of neuroscience would speak up, but it looks like they already have in previous studies! The current study is fine and gives us good information on some unusual architecture in a number of autistic brains. It's the conclusion that the architectural differences occurred prior to birth that is not substantiated. I think you have found the study that proves their conclusion, which I call a hypothesis, is wrong. Since I don't know neuroscience, I can't say for sure, but I'm still hoping for someone who can tell us you've nailed it.

@Linda,
I agree with you that using animals for research is wrong on so many levels, and I feel sorry for people I know whose job it is to inject mice with cancer causing agents. I can see the toll it takes on them and can tell which days are mouse days. But animal experiments are the gold standard in research, far more respected than cell culture work. And we all know that "anecdotal" evidence is almost never respected unless it becomes a Danish epidemiological study. Making genetically modified mouse models is big business and isn't about to stop any time soon. There's a model for almost every chronic illness. In a different life, one with no autism, I might be a crusader against using animals in research. But if animals in research is here to stay for the moment, and I think it is, then I can't think of a better area to use it than legitimate autism research.

I know that may sound like a sell-out, but I seriously think that a few strategic experiments could help elucidate how vaccines, herbicides, pesticides, flame retardants, etc. contribute to chronic diseases. There's a lot of suffering that could be alleviated in the human and animal world with knowledge gained. In my sell out way of looking at it, I agree that there is a special place in Hell for anyone who stands in the way of truth in sciences and perpetuates experiments on animals that don't further our search for truth. Or another way of looking at it is that we are already doing experiments on humans and animals when we use vaccines and all the toxins I mentioned above. Some carefully planned experiments using animals might show us we need to stop.

Oh Linda, I really can't justify it, but it's just not fair that research is usually done now to perpetuate the status quo. We just can't sit back and accept that status quo without a fight. I'm sorry the fight includes animals, but I think it does.

Just looking a bit more into that study on children with autism's brains.
As Linda already pointed out; one kid without autism had the same brain structures, and one with autism did not.
Also happened to find an interesting if heavy duty article;

It is talking about two children who were Shaken Babies, but survived until 7 and 9 years old.
Their brains, which were of course injured after birth, showed amongst other things, "progressive cortical dyspalasia, with cytoarchitectual organization, laminar obliteration"...etc

Which seems to mean that brain injury after birth can result in the same thing..Hmm.

Why the instant assumption the brain damage was prenatal? The other article seems to leave the door open for early brain injury AFTER birth doing the same thing.

Jenny,
It's very important that we hear that Offit is attempting to influence Great Britain's vaccine policy. This shows that his ambition is global. He and his vaccine dinner club members do not want anyone else in the world to have the freedom to say no. If the British can say no, that's a threat to what he's trying to do in America.

Betty,
They already torture mice in autism research. I personally think that those doing it will spend some time in Hell for it and I would like it to stop. We should not be inflicting pain and suffering on any creature and we should not rob any creature of it's life, especially when the answers are right in front of the researchers. They refuse to examine and take fully into account all the information that they can get from the children who are already sick.

For Alzheimer's Disease, there is a plethora of mouse models of the disease to choose from for conducting research. We need some mouse models for autism so we can begin to disprove theories like this "caused at 19 months" theory with no basis. People accept it because they want to believe vaccines have no association with autism. The Caltech study of probiotics used a mouse model that I would like to see used to study this conclusion further. They use some viral mimic that triggers an immune response during pregnancy that causes mousey autism in offspring. How about we study the brains of these offspring to determine when those clusters of disorganized cells form. Also, see if adding a toxin causes more disorganization. Study whether you can also induce autism by doing the viral mimic thing one day after birth in the baby mouse. Do you get clusters with that? How about adding in toxins after birth. If these clusters really are associated with autism, we could learn so much from a mouse model. I don't think it will be done because the medical/industrial complex doesn't want us to know the answers we would learn from these experiments. But they are absolutely the experiments that naturally flow from that "clusters" research. We can't wait for enough of our children's brains to be autopsied, and we really need to watch the development of these clusters through the life span. Just about every disease has a mouse model for research. Why not autism?

Benedetta- Please accept my apologies. My point was the press and media releases were deliberately intended to confuse members of the public into thinking the child brain research was carried out on the brains of foetuses.

Thankfully, on my side of the Atlantic we do not get regaled with Snyderman in the press and media, although Offit was on a recent BBC Newsnight programme( on a transatlantic link) pushing mandatory MMR and other vaccines. GOD FORBID!!

Science is Pure...,
"The correlation to autism is high but not absolute, the cause of the changes to structure is not determined, and their significance to disability is unknown."

Especially since the researchers examined brain tissue from deceased 2-15 year old children, not fetuses, and there was one child without autism who had the same changes and one child with autism who had none. The results could be related to difference in symptoms and severity among the subjects and maybe to false diagnosis. Thanks for the link.

Very technical stuff, (and completely incomprehensible to non neurologists), but I was struck by the similarity to innumerable Alzheimers studies which all mention protein derived 'plaques' and neuron 'tangles' in the brains of sufferers. A BBC TV programme called 'Bang goes the theory' explored this aspect of dementia in more detail, demonstrating how these plaques severely disrupt the neuron activity in the brains of dementia sufferers.
Hmmmm.......

Thanks John for the correction. Indeed the point that we hardly have the big hoopla for awareness and celebration months aor the other disabilty groups speaks volumes. Indeed if autistics have always been amongst us, and their numbers really aren't growing, then what's the fuss?

This is the study of the laminar structure of the brains of autistic children:

We observed focal patches of abnormal laminar cytoarchitecture and cortical disorganization of neurons, but not glia, in prefrontal and temporal cortical tissue from 10 of 11 children with autism and from 1 of 11 unaffected children. We observed heterogeneity between cases with respect to cell types that were most abnormal in the patches and the layers that were most affected by the pathological features. No cortical layer was uniformly spared, with the clearest signs of abnormal expression in layers 4 and 5. Three-dimensional reconstruction of layer markers confirmed the focal geometry and size of patches.

@ Benedetta- "I guess it is there in those fetuses now in that so EXCELLANT STUDY"

Just to clarify the position about THAT research study. They did NOT study the brains of aborted or miscarried foetuses. They used brains from dead children who had been diagnosed with autism. These children were aged up to 15 years old when they died.

I found this research really interesting. Apparently there was evidence of neuro conjestion in the brains of the autistic children. (I will put my scientists' hat on here. Yes I HAVE science qualifications and have been trained in research techniques. This is purely for the benefit of the 'shills' and the likes of Offit, who claim we are all unscientific idiots here!)

The carefully worded press and media reports imply this research shows these brain changes must have been present 'in utero' and this in turn 'proves' autism to be genetic. But this is making two HUGE UNPROVEN ASSUMPTIONS. I'm not surprised Benedetta is confused about this. Basically, these important research discoveries have been 'spun' by the pro-vax lobby to produce propaganda in favour of vaccines.

So what SHOULD happen now? Logically, this research should now be extended to study the brains of dead foetuses. If autism is 'genetic' then we should expect the same brain conjestion in at least 1 in 68 foetuses. Mothers who have received pre natal vaccinations, should be excluded from this study.

From Snyderman (above)
"it is not vaccines that cause problems when children get their baby shots. It goes to an insult earlier in fetal development. And we all have to start really getting on the same page looking for the cause."

Thanks for reporting on the sad state of affairs, and thanks for posting your comments to challenge those who cover it up. I keep thinking that one day something big will happen that will change everything, but even the rise in autism doesn't seem to shake up anyone. Why do so many innocent children have to be sacrificed so big pharm can maintain high profits. I don't get it... at all.

Offit ought to know. That's what he does best. On that he is an expert. If there were awards for fearmongering, he'd win hands down. His message is always, if you don't do as I say, you will have blood on your hands.

I'd like to interview some of the journalists who were the aim of his keynote speech. I would like to ask them how they feel professionally and personally about having a physician dictate to them how they should report on physicians and what they do. Offit is basically telling them that the medical industrial complex is not to be probed or questioned, that the complex led by experts will dictate what the people need to know. I'd like to know too, what the relationship is between the medical industrial complex and the Association of Health Care Journalists. I wonder if Pharma has infiltrated and bought them the way they bought medicine over the past several decades.

Oh, dear Synderman it don't mean it is not the vaccines -- it just means that if you vaccinate the parents like crazy then you get 'em not regressing by born that way.

What is that quote
Boyd Haley

"If you don't want to find something, look for it where it is not."

well I guess it is there in those fetuses now in that so EXCELLANT STUDY --- Let us cocooooooooonnnnnneee the Mother with one of those DTaP shots. Flu shot too -- not to mention these young mothers now are the most vaccinated generation to ever exist.

But, if it's all better diagnosis and their numbers really aren't increasing, what is there to celebrate and raise awareness about? That we are able to identify a special sect of the disabled population with their own unique challenges? Well -- don't the other disabled groups have their own unique challenges, what about them? Why not awareness months for Downs, Cerebral Palsy, Developmental Delays, and so on? HHHMMNNN! It all sounds rather discriminatory.

Who are these people that are "celebrating" autism and autism awareness month? An autism diagnosis does not come with a celebration. A celebration involves joy and parties and a time of happiness. Does anyone in the world think that when your child is diagnosed with any life changing condition that you have a party? That you celebrate this news. Is there a childhood cancer celebration month, or seizure disorder celebration month? Of course not, that would be incredibly insensitive. This is so disturbing.